


On the Wing

by Angryangryowl



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Johnlock - Freeform, Johnlock Fluff, M/M, Winglock, angel!John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 12:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1186395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angryangryowl/pseuds/Angryangryowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was written as part of the Johnlock Challenges Valentines gift exchange for LokiDokiHiddles, based on the prompt 'Happy Setting.' I would be very happy flying above London at night :) </p><p>Sherlock discovers John's wings are not the only thing he has been hiding. Soft and fluffy, but could easily (very easily) turn into smut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Wing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xXFanGirl23Xx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xXFanGirl23Xx/gifts).



John could not believe how tired he was. It had been an incredibly long day at the surgery, it had seemed to take forever for the hour hand of the wall clock to drag itself round to six pm. Enough to hit rush hour on the tube bang on – the pavement outside the tube station was already crowded with beleaguered-looking commuters and excited tourists. He groaned and rubbed his eyes, before taking a deep breath to steel himself and striding purposefully towards the crowded ticket barriers. It was like being herded through a cattle market, in fact coming down yet another flight of stairs, John thought he could simply lift his aching feet and let the crowd carry him along. 

The journey home was spent uneventfully staring at the floor with his forehead neatly lodged in a very tall man’s armpit, pretending he wasn’t there. He dragged himself up the too-many stairs to 221B, shoving the front door shut and resting his back against it, blocking the world out and taking a few, relieved breaths of home.

He glanced around. The flat was still in darkness, the fire had not been lit since yesterday. He hadn’t seen Sherlock since last night. Sherlock was like a slightly feral pet when they were not working together, coming and going as he pleased, working when he found something worthy of his attentions, or being bored and insufferable rest of the time. Somehow, John could never quite quell the worries that pickled in the pit of his stomach. One day the daft bastard was going to find himself up against something even his mighty intellect could not conquer. John just hoped he was there to protect him.

The tight, aching sensation in his shoulder blades loudly demanded his attention. He glanced around out of hint, before facing the curtained window. He removed his coat and wearily unbuttoned his shirt. Thin strips of silk, like bandages were bound around his chest and back. It had been too long since he had stretched properly. Loosening the bindings, he slowly rolled his shoulders, letting the fabric fall to the floor. A pair of thickly feathered wings slowly expanded from his back. Gingerly, a little at a time and wincing a little at their stiffness, he stretched them to their full span. The long and thick outer feathers were twisted and folded into a horrible mess. Bending one wing around to examine them and try to straighten them, he suddenly froze at a voice behind him. 

‘Oh’

Sherlock stood in the doorway to the living room. John turned slowly, already wincing a little in dread at the look that was sure to be on his face. It was something alike what people said happened when your life flashed before your eyes. No, not his life. Not much of note there. Their life. A breathless swirl through the streets of London, murder, and circuses and too many late nights and missed dates. Eating at Angelo’s, and more brushes with death than he cared to remember, and the way Sherlock smelled. He hoped he could cement as much of this in his memory as possible, as it was obvious their friendship was about to be over.

‘This is a new development, John.’ Sherlock remarked, as matter-of-factly as if he’d had his hair cut. The frankness in his voice was betrayed by the childlike wonder on his face.

‘Not really new, exactly…’

‘I see..’ he murmured, his icy blue eyes tracing the tawny feathers stretched behind John. The long outer feathers were a soft brown, which lightened almost to a peach shade in places, fairly similar to a barn owl, with the occasional streak or patch of deep, chocolate brown. The inside of the wings were the soft and downy white of freshly fallen snow.  
Sherlock shook his head slightly, as though trying to correct his vision. He looked back up at John with some disbelief still tracing his beautifully angular features. The features John had observed for so long, longed to touch, kiss, worship. The lips he had watched part as Sherlock finally succumbed to sleep in his hair. The cynical arch of his eyebrow as he regarded him now. 

‘Well, it would seem to be a day of firsts, particularly things until now I was firmly convinced didn’t exist.’

John shrugged.’I suppose I could understand that, you don’t strike me as the religious type.’

‘Forgive me, but the John I know doesn’t eat breakfast without having blasphemed at least six times.’ A twitch of a smile tugged at the corner of Sherlock’s mouth. Even John couldn’t help but giggle a little. The situation was so far past ridiculous, there wasn’t really a good way to react.

‘So.’ Sherlock cleared his throat a little. ‘What, exactly, are you?’

‘Oh I don’t know Sherlock, you tell me.’ He gestured to his expansive wings, looking even more impressive with the orange glow of the street light diffused through them.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, folding his arm across his chest. ‘I wasn’t usually paying attention at story time unless there were pirates.’

John looked at the floor. There was no way to say this without sounding utterly ridiculous. ‘I’m…well, an angel, Sherlock. I tend to keep the wings strapped down. I am, well, I was your angel actually. A guardian. Someone saw fit to assign me to watch you. I didn’t save you. I couldn’t, not in time.’ He shrugged, starring at the floor. God, why hadn’t he been more careful?

‘While that’s very kind of you John, I hardly think I need a guardian.’ Sherlock looked rather offended.

‘Yeah, what with chasing murderers and gang leaders through the streets, pissing off all the wrong people, jumping in front of bloody busses, not to mention barely eating or sleeping, I can’t imagine why anyone would think you need a bit of looking after.’

Sherlock shrugged ‘I had everything under control.’ His eyes continued to trace the graceful arc of John’s wings.

‘Do they…work? Your wings?’

‘Er…how do you mean?’

Sherlock rolled his eyes. ‘Do they achieve their intended purpose? Can you fly?’

‘Um…’ John licked his bottom lip, considering ‘Well, it’s been a really long time and they’re a bit stiff, but in theory, yes, I suppose I could.’

‘Fascinating…’ Taking a few steps closer, he reached out to bury his fingers in the soft white down, gently running them over the top edge of the wing, straightening a couple of feathers that were folded back on themselves. Sherlock was not particularly afraid of physical contact as some people may have suggested, in fact around the few people whom he knew well, he had very little notion of personal space. His striding up to John and exploring his new appendages with his fingers without so much as asking was typical of this. John only just realised he had closed his eyes, lost in the sensation of those long, clever fingers easing out kinks and misplaced feathers. He seemed to recognise this was making John more comfortable, so continued. If John had a surgeon’s hands, Shelock’s were an artists, slim, but sure and delicate in their actions.

‘Better?’ he asked, smoothing the plumage with the back of his hand. There was a surprising tenderness in his voice that John very rarely heard.

‘Much, thanks.’ John sighed, stretching.

‘Show me.’ He looked like an excited child, his eyes alight at the prospect of a new adventure.

John was a little nervous. ‘You know I’m not supposed to, right? If people see…’ He stopped himself. ‘Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter much any more. Like I said, I was a guardian, now I’m just…a bloke with wings I guess. Fallen angel makes me sound like I should be in a heavy metal band so I guess I’ll stick with John.’ He laughed to himself.

‘You say you were a guardian, when did you…?’ he gestured at John to continue.

‘Oh, just after I met you actually. I broke the rules. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Clearly, that’s not true.’

‘I said it doesn’t matter.’ He snapped. He couldn’t tell him, not after everything had already been snatched from the jaws of destruction once in the past ten minutes. He had willingly and wholeheartedly broken the rules. He had fallen for Sherlock within ten minutes of meeting him, hook, line and sinker. Highly inconvenient, he should have simply left for reassignment. He would have forgotten him eventually. But he ignored all warnings and demands and stayed. He did not miss his halo one bit. He sometimes wished they’d taken the bastard wings too.

A hint of mischief twinkled in Sherlock’s eyes. ‘I’ve never really been one for sticking to the rules anyway. Usually dull. Rooftop?’

John smiled, a little relief stilled his churning stomach that he hadn’t persisted in his questions. ‘Probably easier to go up through the loft hatch in my bedroom.’

Sherlock shot him a look ‘Please, I’ve been sneaking up there to smoke for years, I know.’

With a wink, he had disappeared up the stairs.

Out in the chill London air, John stretched his wings gratefully, letting the icy breeze run it’s fingers through them. Sherlock gazed fondly out at the London skyline. John did not  
comment on the abundance of discarded cigarette butts up here.

‘I don’t think we’ll be seen here actually’ John glanced around. A low wall around the small roof terrace shielded it from the view of anyone at street level.

Sherlock perched on the edge of the wall, turning the same fond gaze towards John. For a moment he felt lit like the London skyline.

‘So er…you want me to fly?’

‘Please.’ 

John looked down at his feet. Well, here went nothing. He slowly stretched his wings, beginning a steady flapping motion. He was definitely heavier than he used to be but he could feel the familiar lift pulling just behind his navel. He looked down to see a few feet between him and the rooftop. Tipping his head back into the cool air, stretching his arms, he found he was giggling a little at the freedom of it. He could go anywhere!

He looked down at Sherlock growing a little smaller, now maybe 20 or 30 feet away. He gazed in open-mouthed wonder at John. John couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked at anything like that.

Slowly landing, the swoosh of his wings scattering cigarette butts to the wind, he smiled at the man waiting for him on the rooftop. ‘Well, that’s it I guess…’

‘I don’t suppose you could take me?’

‘Carry you?’

‘Yes, not too high. I’ve always wondered what it might be like. I assumed personal flight may be a while coming so…’ he shrugged.

‘I’m not really designed for passenger flight, Sherlock. But…well, it’ll be an experience’. 

If he was going to die, he thought to himself, he had known it was probably going to be doing something pathologically stupid with Sherlock.

‘How do you think….?’ John looked all six feet of Sherlock up and down. There was no possible dignified way of doing this.

‘Carry me in your arms.’ Sherlock said simply ‘Like a child. You’ll have a more secure grip and be able to fully expand your wings. That this may be a little odd had clearly not entered his head. Although being lifted off a rooftop by a topless winged man may not really be in the realms of the ordinary either, come to think of it.

John sighed, pushing the thought of what he was about to do to the back of his mind and firmly instructing his pounding heart to pipe down. ‘Sit down, side on to me. I’ll kneel and pick you up, easier that way.’

Sherlock nodded and folded his long limbs so he sat, knees against his chest, on the rooftop.

‘Right just…tell me if I’m hurting you.’ John knelt and slightly awkwardly scooped Sherlock into his arms. Sherlock draped his arm around his neck, a rumbling giggle escaping his lips as John rather ungracefully got to his feet.

‘I’m not too heavy am I?’

‘Skinny as a rake.’

A few slow, swooshing beats of John’s wings and they were floating a few feet in the air. John smiled a little that Sherlock gripped his neck a little tighter. It was a perfect, moonlit night, a full and bright moon hanging low in the sky. London shone so brightly that there were very few stars, but now that they were a long way above the roofstops, the shining, snaking line of the Thames meandering it’s way among the buildings was beautiful enough.

The soft, clean smell of Sherlock teased at John’s nostrils as he found the mass of dark curls resting against his shoulder. They swooped slowly, lazily over Euston and St. Pauls, and even with so much of his beloved London to see Sherlock’s head remained settled in the hollow of John’s neck.

‘John?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Of course, what’s up?’

‘What rule did you break? I have formed my own hypothesis but I just wanted to confirm.’

‘What was your hypothesis?’

‘I deduced from the way that you snapped at me that you must have fallen in love. It would be logical assuming traditional Christian teachings on chastity that you were forbidden from doing so. If you had committed a truly heinous crime you would either have been arrested, punished or be in hiding. You stayed with me to bring you closer to the person you had developed feelings for. But this is where, I must confess, I have to give up. I could not deduce who. You held your cards pretty close to your chest on that one.’ 

John’s heart was suddenly in his mouth. He had already made a complete fool of himself today. He suddenly had so much to lose. But in the quiet calm of the night air, the city rumbling away below them, the moment seemed strangely perfect.

‘You, actually.’

Sherlock lifted his head to look John in the face. 

‘Be serious, John.’

‘I am. And I’m sorry.’

Sherlock looked perplexed. ‘Why?’

‘Probably not what you were expecting. And I know it’s not really your thing, and god knows it wasn’t what I was expecting either. I thought it would go away, but I just…’ He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping he could make some sense of the jumble of words twisting around each other in his brain. ‘I just knew that I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t leave protecting you to someone else. I knew that I loved you.’

‘Oh.’ Sherlock was quiet for a few moments. ‘You said that you weren’t gay.’

‘I wasn’t. I’m not, I mean, I don’t think I’ve thought about any other man like that. But you’re different. Look, let’s just go home and we can forget about this. I can go and find another flat if it’s awkward.’

Sherlock’s eyebrows knotted in a slight frown. ‘And yet you haven’t heard my response.’

John shrugged. ‘I understand, Sherlock, I do. It was out of order, I should have just…’

Sherlock placed his cool fingers over John’s lips. ‘I wish you’d said sooner. Forgive me. I am constantly reminded how oblivious I am to other people’s feelings and affections. I thought I had worked you out. I knew you wouldn’t be interested in someone like me. As it turns out, this is one of the rare occasions when I was wrong.’  
He moved his fingers to John’s cheek, stretching up to press his own lips softly against John’s. ‘I love you too. I can’t say since the moment we met. I was confused and in denial. But I fell for you, hopelessly.’ He murmured against his warm lips.

John felt close to dropping him. The sudden change in the pit of his stomach from sinking disappointment to a tidal surge of adrenaline . There was nothing for it except to kiss him again. They sank, slowly back towards the rooftop, wrapped warmly in the sensation of each others arms and lips. John’s hand had managed to tangle itself in Sherlock’s hair to pull his head and those glorious warm lips closer. This drew a groan from somewhere deep in his chest, which sent a warm rush through John’s chest and stomach.

His feet meeting with the solid concrete of the rooftop was a slight disappointment. Sherlock seemed fully unaware that they had landed, or was wilfully ignoring it. His hand explored John’s back, the base of his spine, and the soft down where his wings connected to his shoulder blades. This somehow made John forget any kind of disappointment, lifting his chin to allow Sherlock to further explore his neck with his lips and tongue as his fingers caressed and tugged experimentally at the soft plumage. This felt unexpectedly…incredible, actually.

‘God, Sherlock…’ he gasped. Sherlock had placed his feet back on solid ground, so had had to bend slightly to allow him to continue. ‘Close but not quite…’ he murmured, his lips just brushing an ear lobe. ‘Bed? Yours is closer..’

Several thoughts demanded attention in John’s brain at once. Not one of them involved saying no. He took a deep breath, trying to clear some several things he wanted to do, even here on the roof top, from his mind to ask a question. ‘You’re sure? Sure this is what you want?’

Sherlock only smiled. That rare, genuine, heart-breaking smile that few people got to see. 

‘What I want, Dr, Watson, is you.’


End file.
